Quit Labeling Yourself: How Self-Imposed Labels Negatively Affect Social Esteem

[Nice_Guy_Last]

So, we all have adjectives to describe ourselves. Funny, smart, shy, nice, the list is endless. What is never good to do is to call yourself a noun. Labeling like this can cause negative outlooks on other people and yourself.

For instance, say you considered yourself a Nice Guy. Now, you might have a certain outlook on women, and how to treat them, but identifying as a Nice Guy is actually hindering you. By calling yourself a Nice Guy, you are identifying with a group of people who may not act they way you believe a "Nice Guy" should. You can comment board crusade all you want about it, but it won't change the fact that people are going to assume you are one thing, when you are another entirely.

Another example: I am of Caucasian decent. But calling myself "white" limits me as a person. To some people, being white is inherently negative. I completely disagree with that point of view, and if I cling to my "whiteness", I might take offense to people who act negatively toward white people, and outcry against racism against white people. The thing is, I may not agree with some other white people's view, such as those who are racist against others of other races. Why, then, should I lump myself in with those other people? I stand a better chance of not identifying as white, and defending myself as a person, rather than defend a color of skin.

We can only control our own actions. Those who are similar to us may act out in ways that we don't agree with. If we lump ourselves in with the whole group, however, those actions by others may reflect on us in the eyes of society. Distance yourself from nouns, only describe yourself with adjectives, and you might find that you will be more fairly judged by others.

[Laura_Marx]

I read something by Deleuze about something kind of like this. He said, in a letter, "we have to counter people who think 'I'm this, I'm that' [...] by thinking in strange, fluid, unusual terms: I don't know what I am. [...] It's not a question of being this or that sort of human, but of becoming inhuman."

"Another example: I am of Caucasian decent. But calling myself "white" limits me as a person."

Yes, although I want to say a few things: you do not call yourself white so much as you are called white. Wether you cling to your whiteness or disavow it, you can't really escape the labelling process. We inherit race through a very specific social structure developed by 17th century colonal legalese and natural sciences, viz., European scientific racism, phrenology, the policies of Andrew Jackson, the Spanish castas (which itself inherited its concepts from post-Crusades persecution of Spanish jews), etc. We are born into a world already divided by race, and we are race's unwilling inheritors; the label is applied before we even learn to speak, and our experiences are formed only post-labelling.

As Monsieur Dupont say: "Death comes as the harsh victory of the law of our ancestors over the dimension of our becoming. The defeats of our fathers are revisited upon us as the limits of our world."

And it does limit us as people! Indeed, race is a curse. Oh, had only Richard Lawrence's gun fired true! A dear friend said: "the actual goal of individual existence is non-identity; the discovery of paths of disintegration from institutions; dispersal from known territories; the exceeding of enviornmental constraints." But I don't think just not mentioning our labels is really the best way to undo them. Let us come up with a good way, then. I don't have one yet, and neither, it seemed, did Deleuze - I am not sure about my friend (I never am).

Let us transgress all limitations! End whiteness, end identity! No future, but an infinite space of nothing - the void!

The nice guy is differnet, though. It's self-applied in a unique way. I am a nice guy, I was a nice guy, I ought to be a nice guy. There are probably worse things to aspire to! Although I'm being coy - I know it is an old shibboleth for a certain kind of deterministic view of one's position. I am a little surprised to return here to see Nice-Guyism still being talked about. The nice guy was never so much an identity as a haunted body, though, containing a will but unable to express it. Big Boss in MGSV.

[Nice_Guy_Last]

I very much appreciate this opinion. I wonder this, though: say the world were to abandon a concept, forgetting it entirely, would it still exist?

Maybe in our books but not in our practices.

Labels are something we have created, yet also something that many of us allow to dictate our lives. By renouncing some of the more pernicious labels, and encouraging others to do so as well, perhaps one day, maybe not now, but somewhere in the future, our children can finish this journey of a thousand miles. But we have to take the first step, elseways, it won't happen.

That is my solution: erosion of an archaic label over time until the mountain is but a pebble. If it took time to build, odds are, it'll take time to get rid of.

[Laura_Marx]

I'm reminded of something else from Monsieur Dupont:

"It is said that the aboriginal people of Tasmana, when cut off from the mainland by rising seas, 'lost' much of the mainland technology. They are seen as having 'gone backward'. But perhaps they just didn't need the technology, and life was easier without it? In before-history times there were great seafaring adventures around the Pacific, undertaken in cleverly constructed craft, but the historians say that the seafaring technology was later 'lost'. It is difficult for us, as exemplars of the productivist ethic, to view such occurences in any other terms. All knowledge must be secured in order to secure our future. Only fools would leave it to fall apart on some beach."

Capital's trend is toward accumulation, and I don't know what post-Capital dispersal might look like. It is impossible to imagine beyond Capital.

[Laura_Marx]

As for the second parable - yeah, I get that. But our labels are embodied in existing sturctures, not only language. There is no difference between saying 'I am of caucasian descent' and 'I am white' - both describe a material reality that exists outside of our mentioning it. I think the undoing will take structural conflict, rather than individual identitarian work. There is no 'socialism in one person' :P

[Laura_Marx]

errr, I meant to say 'paragraph', not 'parable', lmao

[BarbaraP]

I find this a bit too extreme. It's understandable if you don't want to label yourself as being part of a political group because you're not always going to agree with all they do and say, but taking it to the point you're not saying you're white is a little too much.
You say labels take the attention away from who we truly are, but avoiding every single type of label does the same in my opinion.
Being a white man is part of who you are, it's one of those countless things that make you, you. And, like it or not, it's going to influence your life in some way or another... as many other things will.
What is wrong is that when you say you're white, people will automatically place you in that category, assuming you're just like every other white person, stereotypes and all that jazz included. The problem lies in what other people think, not in what you are. And since you can't control what people think or how they perceive you, just be yourself and let them think what they want.
It also shouldn't be your problem if some white people are racist. Then just be a non-racist white person!
You ARE white, but you're also way more than that.
I mean, humans can be cruel to one another, right? So why consider yourself human if you don't agree with all of them? Well because you simply ARE.

[Nice_Guy_Last]

I feel that labels cause us to play the part of victim when it hurts us to do so. If someone said, "White people are evil," a person who identifies as a white person would be offended. It doesn't help that person's cause, which, at the core, is less about proving white people to be no more bad as any other race and more about proving that he or she is not evil, to argue on behalf of all white people. Instead, by not identifying yourself as a white person, you don't have to defend your "people", you just have to defend you.

[BarbaraP]

I don't think the point is to defend "your people". If I encountered someone who thought "white people are racist", I would most definitely not be offended, since it's a completely unfounded statement. My main focus would be to let them know how against generalizations and prejudice I am and how unfair it is to assume you know someone based on their skin colour. But yeah it's definitely easier if you simply defend yourself and say "well, who cares if they are, I'm not like them".

[Anonymous]

What the hell difference does it make? What is it to you if someone labels themselves? I dont think some people give a crap.

[Nice_Guy_Last]

I just think that people would be better off without labels. If that's not how you would want to live your life, so be it. I just refuse to label myself.

[Opinion Owner]

Well you dont get to choose what people would be better off with. I hate it when people push their views on others.

[Nice_Guy_Last]

I am pushing nothing. I am merely offering a different point of view. If you take offense to that, I'm sorry, but maybe this site isn't for you.
Also, I am feeling some amount of venom in what you are writing. You don't need to be so aggressive to get your point across to me.

[Opinion Owner]

You dont even know me... dont tell me what is best for me

[Nice_Guy_Last]

Ok, have a nice day.

Oh wait, I'm sorry, I just told you to do something again, didn't I. My bad, I take it back.

[Anonymous]

Great take! I used to label myself quite a lot. It took a while to notice its effects.
Now I just let people decide what to label me. I don't dwell on it whether it's nice or bad.

[Opinion Owner]

If I need to describe myself I just say some labels people give me and add "Some say XYZ, some say ABC...".